


our war

by tovarich (orphan_account)



Series: paint the commonwealth red [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Cold War, F/M, Military, One-Sided Attraction, Pre-Canon, Snipers, Soviet Union, Women in the Military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 03:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5442356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/tovarich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate had been as surprised as everyone else when the Soviets decided to help them take on the Chinese. Still, no one had quite expected the entire regiment to be entirely made up of girls. One of them in particular had caught Nate’s eye, if he was being honest.</p><p>

or, how Sergeant Halyna Maksymyivna Prokopenko and Corporal Nathaniel Walsh first met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	our war

**Author's Note:**

> introducing my beautiful soviet sniper wife and her failboat of a husband! 
> 
> PLEASE check the end notes for anything that might trigger you or put you off!

Nate had been, well, about as surprised as everyone else when the Soviets decided to help them out as they took on the Chinese. Anchorage was a fucking mess, and Nate didn’t regret being transferred to the other side of the Pacific, but the fight was long and hard -- in other words, the help was needed, and really fucking appreciated, thank-you-very-much. 

He had heard the propaganda, vague noises of a Soviet tradition of sending birds into a war zone, but Nate had somewhat dismissed it when he first heard of it. The States sent women to combat too, rare as they were; most women didn’t fancy being stuck in power armor, but it wasn’t too much of a surprise when one of his brothers-in-arms turned out to be a sister. 

Still, no one had quite expected the entire regiment to be made up of _school-girls_. The eldest looked to be no older than twenty-five, and he swore that the youngest looked to be about _fifteen_. The damn Reds were insane, he had concluded, and he didn’t just mean the Chinese. Because Nate didn’t mind fighting with women, even if the sheer quantity of them seemed strange and made him somewhat uncomfortable, but he drew the line at sending fucking _children_ to war. 

It had been a week, and the novelty had mostly worn off. The first battle had been a real wake-up to call to the men who would jeer at their allies: the Soviet girls worked like a well-oiled machine. The nurses would sprint out under gunfire to patch wounds on the go. Others would grab the fallen soldiers and drag them back to safety, power-armor, gun and all, deposit their charges, and then run back out for another without stopping for a breath. Some of the girls barely pushed 5’0 and yet they managed to haul about huge men in armor. Nate had seen it with his own two eyes and still had trouble believing it. Some of the most impressive, though, were the snipers. They would go out in pairs, staying up in their nests for days at a time without moving, dropping enemies smoothly and mechanically.

The thirty or so girls who had been added to their regiment were nurses, snipers, surgeons, artillery women. They sung while they marched or prepared for bed, flirted, shone in battle. Despite their bulky male-issue uniforms and shorn hair, they were all quite pretty. Since the Russians had arrived, morale was definitely up, was what Nate was saying.

One of them in particular had caught Nate’s eye, if he was being honest. She was the sergeant of the six-woman sniper group on loan, but Nate hadn’t made a move yet -- he wasn’t exactly sure how old she was, and he had a little sister, so he didn’t want to be making a move on a kid. She had a number of stars and stripes on her jacket chest and sleeve, so he assumed she was older. Anyone who had seen that many battles _had_ to have been serving for a while, right? 

Her hair was short like a boy’s, but still suited her, and the times that he saw her not covered in fucking mud or blood it was a warm golden brown. The brown eyes that he had met a few times already were quick, clever, to be expected of a sniper, but playful too. The boys would nudge Nate when she walked past, waggle their eyebrows, and he’d shove them off with good humor. 

Now, back to the present: it had been a week, and the novelty had worn off. Nate wasn’t on patrol or on watch, and the airvac had just delivered crates of Nuka-Cola, donated by civilians back on the homefront -- activity in the camp seemed to have stopped as soldiers swarmed around, trying to score a bottle. Nate was sipping his own, relishing in the sun and the taste of soda on his tongue, able to pretend he was back home in Boston if not for the heat and humidity. 

A tap on the shoulder had him jumping and twisting around to see his sniper girl standing there with two others behind her, looking curious and a bit bewildered. “Ma’am?” he asked, after coughing down his mouthful of drink. The girls smothered their giggles before the sergeant spoke, snapping a salute. 

“Comrade American,” was their typical way of greeting, and she was no different. The accent was charming, if a bit appalling. “What is happening over there?”

“I, uh,” Nate fumbled with his soda bottle for a second, returning the salute and trying not to die inside when he saw her lips trying not to curl into a smirk. “Well the boys back home sent over some crates of soda pop for the soldiers, y’see, that they might have something to remind them of home…” He trailed off when her brow furrowed, and he backpedaled, sure that he was flushing furiously. “Didja, uh, get all that? I can say it again if-”

“I understand,” she interrupted him, holding up a very small hand. “This word - soda pop? It is alcohol?”

“Oh, no, no it’s not. It’s, um. Well.” Nate was dying, he was actually dying, he had never been this clumsy while talking to a girl before in his fucking life. “It’s not alcoholic, that’s for sure. I don’t really know what it is, to be honest. It’s just, y’know, good.”

“Ah! _Kvass_ ,” the sergeant said suddenly, face smoothing out as if she held the answers to the goddamn universe. 

“Gesundheit,” Nate responded, and then bit back a groan when all three Soviets frowned. A moment’s hesitation passed before he offered the bottle out to her. She blinked up at him, (and Jesus Christ, she was about a foot shorter than him, he was going to die) and grinned, accepting it and taking a tiny sip before promptly gagging and pressing her tiny hand to her mouth.

Nate was almost offended as he watched her force herself to swallow -- don’t be weird, don’t be weird, fucking don’t be weird about it Christ -- but he couldn’t help but laugh as her friends did the same. “Not _kvash_ then?”

She handed the bottle back, grimacing. He hoped it wasn’t at the prononciation. “ _Kvass_.” Shit. “And, no, but I thank you anyway. Perhaps we will leave this one to the Americans, eh?”

“You can do whatever you like, ma’am,” he replied, taking it back and sipping from it.

His sniper girl raised an eyebrow at that and smiled, resting her hands on her belt. “Sergeant. Not mum. Sergeant Prokopenko, Halyna Maksymyivna, in fact.”

“Corporal Nathaniel Walsh,” he shot back, suddenly worried he’d been shot down. “I go by Nate, though. Think you can help me puzzle through your name there, Sergeant?”

She laughed and shook her head, rolling her eyes at her comrades before propping a boot up on the ammo box he was using as a footrest. “Halyna,” she pointed at herself, speaking slowly and grinning as if she were explaining it to the fucking village fool. Which Nate supposed he was. 

“Daughter of Maksym. Maksymyivna,” she said when he nodded, and he offered another uh-huh for her to continue. “Prokopenko is my surname,” Sergeant Halyna Maxksimgkvna Prokopenko finished, looking up at him expectantly.

“Sergeant Halyna… Prokopenko,” he parroted back, and she sighed.

“Good enough for now, Corporal Nate Walsh. These are comrades Corporals Nina Filipovna Podvychenskaia and Natalia Vassilievna Dobniakova.” Nate nodded, saluting and smiling as if he hadn’t already forgotten what their goddamn surnames were. Why were Russian names so complicated? 

“We also have something that our families send us on the front, to help us,” said the redheaded one on the left, whom Nate thought might be Nina. “Vodka.”

The other two burst out laughing, and Nate noticed that Halyna’s laugh came out as this awkward kind of giggle-snort. He was done. He was done for. He was dying on the Russian-Chinese front and it was like high school all over again. 

“Ladies,” he said instead, because he wasn’t quite sure how to follow up to that, and they straightened and nodded, fixing their collars as if they had been doing something else than just having a chat and making fun of the American. 

“Comrade corporal,” Halyna responded, the other two -- shit, what were their names again? -- chorusing along and then following her back towards the Soviet side of the camp.

Nate counted to ten before letting out the longest exhale of his fucking life, probably, and downed the rest of his Nuka-Cola and got up. He had to report for duty soon, and as he was turning around to find a place to chuck the empty bottle he came face to face with Gary and Francis, both bearing the most shit-eating grins. 

“I don’t want to hear anything from either of you,” he threatened, going red again, and his friends just laughed. 

“Whatever you say, _comrade corporal_ ,” Francis said, batting his eyelashes dramatically while Gary nearly pissed himself laughing. Goddamn, but Nate needed better friends. He shoved his helmet on and left his soda bottle on the ground, stomping off while his teammates hurried to catch up.

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: nate's fears are all extremely founded, as halyna is only 17 in this chapter. their relationship won't start until a few years down the line when she's of age, but he does have a few dirtyish thoughts and if that squicks you feel free to ignore this work!  
> likewise this fic takes place during the sino-american war that precedes the Great War and as such all of the characters are a bit callous towards the chinese. please let me know if i ever go explicitly out of line!
> 
> and finally, please leave a comment if you enjoyed it and want to see more! i'm really a bit apprehensive of posting this here aah!!


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